


Take Control

by igrab



Series: Fill the Air [1]
Category: Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-16
Updated: 2010-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 23:45:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrab/pseuds/igrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I spent six months in a Manchurian slave camp because of you. They were going to cut off my fingers!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Control

  
"So...." Joe propped himself up on one elbow and frowned down in the general direction of Frankie's chest. "Why aren't I in love with you?"

It was a testament to their friendship, that he could ask a question like that. It was an answer in and of itself. She laughed.

"What would Polly think, if she heard you say that?"

He winced, but he supposed he deserved that one. "We weren't going to talk about Polly."

"We weren't going to talk about love, either, but you've never been one for following the rules." Another bland statement of fact, and it was neither endearing nor affectionate. It was, however, warm, which was more than most could claim.

"I feel like I should. We get along so well." He was trying to be serious, really he was, but her grin was infectious.

"Oh, Joseph." She sat up, just as comfortable without clothing as she was at the helm of a plane. One swipe of her hand twisted her hair into a knot, the next pinned it there, and Joe was sad to see it go but just as glad for the view of the back of her neck. "I'd tell you why, but you wouldn't believe me."

Now _that_ was an insult he couldn't take. He sat up a little straighter among the sheets. "Try me."

Frankie peered over her shoulder, halfway through fixing her bra straps. "All right. There's someone else."

"Someone - " He sputtered, caught between a laugh and a snort. "You really don't think I _love_ her, even after - "

"I wasn't talking about Polly."

The laughter melted slowly off of his face, leaving only a blank confusion in its wake. "Who?"

But she just smiled, and slipped back into her jacket. "You'll figure it out soon enough."

"_Who?_"

"That would give all the fun away."

"_Who, Frankie?_"

But it was no use. If Frankie didn't want to him to know, he wouldn't, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  
He barely made it to his lunch date.

"So?"

"So what?" He whipped off his scarf, trying to make it look like he hadn't just been running through the streets of Nanjing.

"That's the third time you've been late to see me." Polly made the motion of tucking hair behind her ear, even though she didn't have to.

Joe ran a hand over his own hair, checking if it was in place. "I do have other things to do here, you know. I get paid to save the world and I wouldn't want to waste it."

They had some rules about their relationship, and the biggest one was, 'Talking about work is not allowed'. Mostly because Joe had this sneaking suspicion that the only reason Polly liked him was because he would make for an interesting front page.

But if he could feed her curiosity a little, hook her on the edge of getting him to talk, then maybe she'd drop this ridiculous cheating suspicion theory.

...She was right, of course, but _that_ didn't have anything to do with anything. Besides, what he had with Frankie was all sex and what he had with Polly decidedly _lacked_ sex, so really, could anyone blame him?

He wasn't in love with either of them, though, and damn, _who was it?_

"Sorry, what did you say?" Joe asked, realizing he'd drifted off and Polly had been talking at him.

She gave him her very best unamused pursed-lips expression. "You're getting later and later, too, it's like your mind's somewhere else. Can't you at least think about me when you're here?"

_But it wasn't Polly, of course it wasn't. Why did he even go through with this?_ "Sorry."

Oh yes, because of her hair, and that coy frankness that he hated so much was also kind of a turn-on, maybe more than she would've liked. But somewhere along the path that led up her skirts, she'd ended up as someone he could call a friend.

That's what made this entire situation so difficult. Maybe he just shouldn't have friends anymore.

She was still looking at him with suspicion in her eyes, and red nails tapped a slow pattern on her painted china teacup. "Are you free tonight? There's a show on, I think you'd like it."

"No, I have a rendezvous tonight - "

He cut himself off, but not soon enough, and a slow, winning smile curled on Polly's face. Damnit, damnit, _damnit_, he told himself, hating how easy it was for her to get what she wanted.

"Stay out of it, Polly."

"You've kept me in the dark for four months, and I _need_ this story."

He leaned forward, eyes flashing. "We had an agreement."

"Then maybe we need a new one." She poured tea like a pro, for both of them. He grabbed her wrist as she set his cup down, holding her there.

"We had an agreement because I don't want you poking your nose into dangerous business, you _know_ that."

"Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's my _job_." She was trying to pull away, but his fingers tightened.

"_My_ job is to keep you safe."

"_Your_ job is to save the world. _My_ job is to tell people about it. Will you let go of me?"

"No."

They stared each other down for a long few minutes, until he coudln't take it anymore and broke off, sighing. "All right. Here's the new agreement."

"You know, the word 'agreement' implies - "

"I'm _telling_ you, and you're going to listen." Joe pinned her with his eyes, knew she'd stay put if he just stared hard enough. "It goes like this. If you come with me, you stay with me. You see it through to the end. You listen to everything I tell you. You follow my lead. Do you understand?"

From the looks of it, she was as surprised as he was to hear the words come out of his mouth. What was he thinking? He barely tolerated Polly to begin with!

Maybe he just missed having someone to give orders to.

"I understand," she said quietly, and he got up from the table, leaving the tea unfinished.

"Tonight, 7:30. I'll pick you up. Don't you dare wear high heels."

"I'll be sure to," she called after his retreating back.

  
Now that he had something _else_ to worry about, Frankie's little bombshell of a revelation got pushed to the back of his mind. Joe banged around his hotel room for the better part of the afternoon, cursing himself silly and trying to tell himself that maybe, _maybe_ if he let Polly have her story, she'd let him get a little further than kissing.

He was having a problem, though, and it had been happening more and more often lately. It was just - he was having a hard time seeing himself getting anywhere with Polly, and not just because she was a stubborn mule who refused to let him get his way. Once upon a time, kissing her had been all he could think about - her hair haunted his dreams, and her fingers and curves fit into the spaces around his missions.

But that was before he knew her. That was before they'd... become acquainted, no, he couldn't use the word 'friend'. They weren't friends, friends didn't argue like they did, friends didn't use each other, friends didn't lie. But it was before she'd known him as more than a name, printed in black and white under a grainy photograph.

Now he tried to think of her, and his mind simply slipped away.

He thought about Frankie. That was easy to do, but the Frankie he saw was fully dressed in her smart military uniform and she was barking orders and she was in her element. There were something so attractive about that, about her confidence, about the way trousers fit her legs, and all that hair under a smart military cap. It was hard to see her as something feminine, and he still wanted her.

Fuck. Joe pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, and bit his lip against his own thoughts, which were unruly and refused to cooperate. Polly. He needed to think about Polly, because he'd gotten himself into a damn idiotic situation and he needed to find a way out of it before she got them both killed.

...Someone knocked on the door, however, saving him from any more logical pitfalls. "Yes?"

"Telegram, sir."

He nearly knocked over the side table getting up, and completely forgot that he wasn't entirely decent as he yanked the door open and took it from the poor unsuspecting porter. "Thank you," he said curtly, shut the door in his face, and rushed back to his desk to read it.

_all is well at base stop making headway stop replacement parts to follow stop send me some tea next time will ya stop miss you come home soon_

dex

Joe couldn't help the smile that jumped to his face. Oh, Dex. They'd been exchanging telegrams whenever they could, the whole time he'd been gone, and Dex always ended his with 'miss you come home soon'. _Soon, Dex, very soon_, he thought, and fished around for a bit of spare paper and a pen. He didn't talk about Polly, or Frankie, or any number of things he really wanted to talk about, but after three botched attempts, he finally had a response.

_big night tonight stop end is in sight finally stop i thought you said you hated tea stop if you experiment on my dog again i will shoot you stop miss you be home soon_

sky captain

He stuffed the draft into his pocket once he'd finally pulled his pants on, mentally going through a list of everything he needed for the night. Binoculars, compass, goggles, a gag for Polly, hat, gloves...

He checked his watch on the way out the door. There was just enough time to stop at the post office to get that wire sent before his date. He wouldn't be late this time.

  
Joe Sullivan was pretty sure he was alive. There was no way a dead person could be in this much pain.

He groaned and pushed himself up to his elbows, and made two highly astute observations - his clothes had nearly burned away, and he was not alone.

In fact, he was so very not alone that he began to feel a bit claustrophobic. People were spilling out over his legs, shifting and murmuring in that somnolent, defeated way of people who are resigned to being in the same place for a very, very long time.

Joe sat up. No. No. "Ah- excuse me..."

No one looked at him. No one even moved. Well, most of them didn't even understand English, most likely. Damn.

"Nice place. Could use a little decoration, you know, some flowers..."

He spoke because speaking took his mind off the pain, a little, and he needed to hear his own voice, needed some anchor to reality. As unreal as all of this seemed. "...Look, does anyone know where we are?"

The mass shifted, at that, and someone came forward - a rough, scarred hulk of a man, so eclipsed by his filth that it was hard to tell where he was from, except for the very blue of his eyes. "That game stops being funny very, very quickly."

His accent was thick and undefinable, though, and Joe found himself gulping, apprehensive, as he stepped over limbs to come closer. "I'm not playing. I really haven't the slightest clue where I am."

The man fired off a question in a clipped, alien tongue to someone behind him, and he answered in kind. A grudging acceptance came over his face. "You are man they brought in from wreckage?"

_The wreckage? Oh no. No, no, no,_ Joe thought, starting to panic just a little. _Not my plane. Please don't tell me - _

"A... plane wreck?" he managed, his voice not much more than a squeak.

"Yes. Was cute plane, before it had misfortune to crash near slave camp."

Shit, Joe thought, with a deep drop in his stomach. _Shit_.

The man squatted until he could look Joe in the eyes, to the great dismay of his nose. He resisted the urge to clamp his hand over it to block the stench; that would probably be disrespectful. Or something.

"You are... Sky Captain?"

Joe nodded slowly. He could see it in the man's eyes, could see it in the slow dawning on the faces around him. No. He couldn't let this happen. He couldn't let them make him out to be some sort of hero, like he'd come to save the day. He couldn't let them have hope.

"I can't do anything," he whispered.

"You must," the man returned, eyes sharpening until they broke skin. "You must help us. Please."

"I'm sorry." Joe reached a hand up and cupped the back of his new friend's neck, heart breaking. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."

  
Everyone told him he'd settle into a routine pretty quickly. He did. His routine apparently involved getting lashed daily for being unable to shut up.

"You must learn to hold your tongue," Nikolai told him, as he washed out the raw wounds on his back in the dead of night. Joe called him 'Big Nik', for the most part, and he seemed to enjoy the nickname.

"What, I should just bend my head and get on with my nonexistent life?" He hissed as something pulled and stung, but winced at himself and gritted his teeth harder because of it. "Why take away my only pleasure? Lashes are - " his throat tightened and he couldn't speak, for a moment, but he refused to make noise. " - worth it, to throw a little back at them."

"They will kill you some day."

"Perhaps." The big man's hands were gentle, and Joe leaned into them, even if it made his wounds throb. It was the only bit of affection he was going to get, and he wanted to wrap himself up in it as much as he could. "Would it really be so bad?"

"Yes," Nik answered, immediately. "You are Sky Captain. You will be missed. Nikolai, no one notices. No one cares. Went off to fight war, must be somewhere. No one will know." He seemed to understand the leaning, and moved his hands to an unhurt area, so he could give a squeeze of comfort. "But you are different story. They will find you."

But Joe had gone still under the steady touch. "Nik. Someone sabotaged my plane. Someone wanted me dead."

There was a long silence, waiting with bated breath for the continuation of the thought.

"...And whoever it was will have made certain that the world believes it."

It was all falling into place now. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it, except the evidence was staring him in the face. Polly had sabotaged his plane. Polly would've told the world of his death, and everyone believed her, because Polly Perkins would do anything for a story but she wouldn't print lies.

_Why?_ His stomach was turning, muscles starting to shake and it wasn't the pain, wasn't the horror and the injustice because he could deal with that, he was a survivor. But he couldn't believe that Polly wanted him dead that badly.

_I have a rendezvous._

_Maybe we need a new agreement._

_Your job is to save the world. My job is to tell people about it._

He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and bit down, eyes getting wider and wider and wider.

_Everything for the story, Joe. You should know that by now. Everything I do, everything I say, is for one purpose. _

The story.

If he'd made the rendezvous, everything would've stayed under the table, safe, out of the public eye. She had to have known that he was planning on locking her in a bathroom and going on without her. She knew him well enough for that. But if he was out of the picture - conflict, explosions! A hero, dying in action, just barely too late to save the world!

In that moment, he hated every fiber of her being.

  
He couldn't believe it.

They were shutting the base down.

Six months, they said, we'll give you six months before we come in and take over. Government property, they said.

_Fuck you_ had been Dex's response, out loud and offending everyone. _This is private property. You can't do this._

_Joseph Sullivan is dead_.

And that was the part of this equation that he just couldn't process.

_Joseph Sullivan is dead_.

Six months to pack up years of private scientific research. The biggest stumbling block so far was that Dex refused to cooperate. It was sort of difficult to pack up a lab when the head scientist kept putting things back.

"No. _No_. You can't move that. Why are you moving that? That's coming with me. No. I'll get it later. I don't know, _later_. Leave me alone."

He locked himself in his office, shoved his desk under the doorknob, unable to deal with the world at large. He needed to _think_, damnit.

His brain clicked angrily, like a clock with a gear missing, but the days turned into weeks, and the weeks stacked up like dominos. He couldn't do this. He couldn't live with this.

Focus.

Day 28. He reread the article. The newsprint was already creased and running from all the times he'd looked it over, folded it and shoved into his pocket, and he could probably have recited the words from memory by now, but the words settled him, put him into the right frame of mind, away from all the bustle of other people. His head craved silence like a junkie.

_Focus._

Fact: The Captain's plane had gone down en route from Nanjing to Manila.

Fact: It had started a forest fire in the deep wildernesses of Manchuria.

Fact: ...

But that was it. Those were the facts. No one had been able to go in and find his body, it was in the middle of the worst backwater enemy territory, and who could've survived a crash like that, right?

Dex refused to believe it.

The problem was, there wasn't anything he could _do_ \- especially without a _base_, without his equipment. These guys didn't know Joe like he did, they respected him as their leader and all, but they weren't - they didn't obsess over him like Dex did, they didn't believe in him with every molecule in their bodies. Dex did. And, for fuck's sake, he wasn't about to let this go on the say of a goddamn _reporter_.

He kicked at his wastebasket, hard, and glared stonily through the resulting maelstrom of papers.

_Damnit_ all to _hell!_

He sat down in the center of his floor, propped his chin on his hands, and tried to think of ways out of this. If he could sneak enough equipment off the base, he could... what? Go where? Do what? He didn't even have the slightest idea what he was doing.

Something fluttered down over his face and landed in his lap. He grabbed it, scowling, and was about to toss it away when something made him peer closer. Jeez, this was old. When was the last time he'd emptied his bin?

They were drafts, not even on proper blueprint paper, just scribbled on the back of some comic ad. Ideas. Ideas about an airstrip that could fly through the sky...

  
He was nineteen and enthusiastic and so, so new at this. I mean, sure, he had a college degree and great recommendations, but those were words on paper, and he didn't have anything to show for himself, and no one to show it to, anyway.

He sat in a coffee shop on the corner of Sixth Avenue, a dogeared comic book in pieces on the table, weighed down with a half-empty mug of cocoa. He really needed a job, but that just didn't seem too important right then.

He always read the ads. He didn't know why, it wasn't like they were interesting or anything, but he paid for the whole thing, right? So he might as well read everything it had to say. This one was about some new line of toy planes, and he had to admit, he was pretty psyched. Even if he didn't have the money for it, he could at least kill some hours goggling at them, and at least someone out there was profiting from their ideas.

He turned it over, looked at the blank page on the other side. Weird of them, to waste paper like that, but maybe it was defective? He always got this itchy feeling when he looked at blank paper, in his fingers, like he couldn't sit still with some unmarked area of the world. He guessed it must be the same feeling that famous explorers get, looking at the edges of the map and thinking _what if_?

But he did one better than that. _They_ could only go to places that already existed. _He_ was only bound by the laws of physics and his imagination.

He fished in his pocket for a pencil and some erasing rubber, though it took a good long hunt to find either in the chaos that lived there. He sketched. Just some lines at first, then planes, because that had had got him thinking, and _damn_, what he wouldn't give to work on planes. Real planes, not the cheap little models. He wanted to crawl inside them and roll himself in all the big clanking pieces. He wanted to hear the engine growl under his hands.

His sketches got more fantastic, as they spread over the page. Some notes on the flight properties of airships. A reinforced balloon design, for more veritcal flights. A winglike contraption that would leave your body free to the elements, controlled by the hands and feet. A mobile airstrip, supported by massive engines that would hover just above the clouds.

"_Incredible_," a voice breathed, just above his right shoulder.

Dex nearly jumped out of his skin. "Jesus! How long've you been - "

But his breath caught in his throat for second, because those were some of the goddamn bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," the man said, and _of course_ he was British, life was just that unfair. "I just couldn't help - "

"Looking over my shoulder?" Dex really wished he could raise one eyebrow, but two was the best he could do, so he did.

The man paused, and then he laughed, almost - nervously. "...I really like your designs," he said, like that was an answer.

"Who _are_ you?"

One eyebrow. God_damn_, Dex thought, despairingly. "My name's Joe Sullivan. But you might know me better as Sky Captain."

Okay, _now_ was the time for the double-eyebrow-raise, and Dex's nearly touched his hairline. "_You're_ Sky Captain?"

Joe's eyes narrowed, even as his grin widened. "What, you say that like you can't believe it."

Dex may have snorted a little. "Well, it's kinda hard to believe. You're practically a legend."

"Only to some people." He sat down, uninvited, across the table and inched his gloves off his hands. Gorgeous hands, and Dex needed to stop thinking _right now_. "I'm interested in your sketches."

"They're just doodles," and this was fucking embarrassing, he had comic books spread across the table and he was sitting across from _Sky Captain_, big damn hero.

"Could it work?"

"What?"

"This, the mobile airstrip." And it just occurred to Dex, out of the blue, that the Captain was serious. He was seriously interested in what Dex had to offer.

Holy _fuck_.

"Well, in theory, yes." He leaned forward, tapped the end of his pencil on the hastily-drawn breakdown of engine schematics. It wasn't long before he forgot who he was talking to, because it was so easy to slip into that mode, the one-physicist-to-another mode, and his impromptu lunch partner looked _so interested_ that it didn't take a word to spur him on.

"What's your name," he finally said, when Dex had furrowed his brow and taken a moment to drink his stone-cold cocoa while he tried to work out an issue with wind resistance.

"Dex," he muttered, and suddenly it came back to him, that he was talking to _Captain_ Joe Sullivan, and he very barely resisted the urge to blush.

"Dex." Okay, well, now, that wasn't helping _at all_ with the whole blush thing. "I want you to work for me."

He sputtered. "What?"

A slow grin started at the corners of Joe's mouth, until he was very nearly beaming. "I love the way you think."

He. He. _What_. "...You don't even know if I'm actually making sense. You don't even know if I've got credentials."

"I don't care about credentials, and you _do_ know what you're talking about." The smile was coy, now, and knowing - and Dex had absolutely no resistance against it. He melted like butter. "Work for me, Dex."

"I - well - ...yes."

  
It had been almost a month now. It wasn't long enough.

"We're receiving a signal from the Sky Captain base, Commander."

Frankie stood up from her desk, rubbing at one temple with a gloved hand. "Priority coding?"

"It's on the Captain's personal frequency, sir."

_That_ made her look up, the one good eye widening. But then her brows knitted and she frowned, folding her arms across her chest. "Not possible."

"Well, here's your impossible telegram, Commander." He handed it over, and Frankie pursed her lips, knowing it was only what she was due. She had no tolerance for bullshit in others, so it was only fair that they wouldn't accept it in return. Didn't mean she had to like it.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said dryly, and waited until he'd bowed his way from the room before she unfolded the slip of paper, delicate even through leather.

_commander this is dex dearborn stop i dont know if you remember me but i need to talk to you about the captain stop dont believe the newspapers stop we can still find him stop_

Oh, _Dex_, how could I forget? For the first time in four weeks, Frankie smiled, her lips stretching wide over perfect teeth.

A pipe dream. She didn't believe it for a second - Polly may have been a conniving bitch who would do anything for a story, but her articles told the truth. Sometimes, it was a painful truth, but she would not make up lies - and certainly not about someone she cared for.

Frankie strode into the communications room, and recited a set of coordinates to transfer back.

She may not have believed him, but the least she could do was hear him out.

  
"Men, listen up! Stop picking your arses! This is not your run of the mill blow shit up mission so pay attention! I don't care what your religion is but you can leave it at the doorstep, this here fine gentleman is your new lord and savior! He will talk! You will listen! He will give you orders! You will do them! He will tell you things you will not understand! You will put this behind you! You will -"

But the man behind him interrupted, a smile on his face. "Really, Lieutenant, that's enough."

Francesca Cook was a soldier and she was 'one of the boys' but that didn't change the fact that she was biologically female, and that being the case, there was no way that she could have seen Joseph Sullivan and not immediately fallen under his spell.

On the other hand, she was pretty certain that she wasn't alone. Every single pair of eyes was trained on Joe's face, and most of them were darting down to his lips, his smile, to the fit of his pants and the needlessly low neckline of his shirt.

At least Frankie could claim she'd always been straight. _Her_ sexuality wasn't the one in question.

"My name's Joe Sullivan, but you all probably know me better as Sky Captain."

They were soldiers, so they gasped in _unison_.

"Now. I'm going to brief you on the mission at hand. From this point on, you are all operating as private mercenary soliders, directly under my command and mine only."

Frankie wondered, if he took his shirt off, would they faint in unison, too?

"You've all been chosen because you have experience with organized combat and surveillance in deep-sea conditions. Your job is to watch, report, and respond. Your job is also to think for yourselves. These are uncharted waters, and our prey is both dangerous and intelligent." He fixed them all with a Very Serious Look, and Frankie wasn't actually sure how no one came on the spot. Herself included.

"I'm going to ask a serious question, and I want a serious answer. No playing favorites." _He will tell you things you don't understand. You will put this behind you._ "I need to know which one of you has the best battlefield intuition."

The lieutenant tried to catch his attention. "Uh, sir, I'm the ranking - "

But every single one of the soldiers had turned, and they were all looking right at Frankie. It wasn't playing favorites. It wasn't a matter of pride. It was just the truth.

She stepped forward. "That would be me, sir."

  
He climbed out of the cockpit and tried to catch his breath, looking everywhere with eager eyes. He'd never been up here before, hell, he designed the damn thing but no one thought to invite him to the induction ceremony.

_Well, that's a lie, there wasn't any ceremony but Joe told him it was beautiful._

He was in love.

Well, that too but he _meant_ the airstrip.

"Mr. Dearborn."

Oh, _hell_ no. He snapped his jaw on the gum in his mouth, tried to keep from rolling his eyes. "Just Dex."

"Right this way, sir."

Once upon a time, this would have made him jealous. Now it just made him homesick, and yeah, he'd only just left, but it hadn't felt like home for a month now. It wasn't the same without Joe.

They let him into a room, an office space, though it was much better lit than the dark little chambers back at base. There was a lot of light in general up here, because walls were heavy and clouds were for lesser mortals.

He'd never met Commander Cook before. He knew that she was an old friend of Joe's, that they'd worked together before - obviously, he knew that she was commanding officer on Airstrip One, but somehow, they'd never actually _met_.

"Hi," he said, because he didn't know what else to say, and she was smiling at him.

"You're Dex." It wasn't a question. "Now. What is it you have to tell me?"

All business, no fun, is that how this was going to be? But Dex knew two things for a certainty - Frankie was Joe's friend for a reason, and he could count on her.

"I want to find him," he said, flat-out, and when that didn't exactly thrill her, he forced himself to add "dead or alive." It was pretty obvious which one he believed, though.

She gave him her best I-don't-take-bullshit stare. "And how do you propose we do that."

He took a deep breath, met her stare for stare. "There's a tracking device, sewn into his coat. If we can find that signal, we can find him- we- we'll know for sure." He couldn't do it, couldn't bring himself to say 'his body' because _fuck_, Joe wasn't _dead_.

She was giving him a long look, calculating, and Dex knew why Joe liked her so much. She was smart, she was confident, she thought things through. He wasn't in much of a place to say if she was pretty, but _he_ almost found her a little attractive, and that was saying something. He probably - no, definitely - had a thing for authority figures. But that's where the appeal ended.

"...All right," she said, and his heart _leaped_ out of his chest and went dancing around the halls. "We search. Head to the communications lab and get started. I have some administrative bootlicking to do."

"Yes, ma'am, right away ma'am!"

She'd gotten up to sweep past him, but that made her stop, hand on the doorknob. "...Frankie," she said, with a genuine smile. "It's just Frankie."

  
"You know, I have this theory," Joe mused to the dirt under his face. "That people who enjoy causing pain were, in some way, deprived as a - " He hissed, teeth clenching. " - child. Did your parents take a whip to your back when you cried-ah!" He talked to keep himself from making noise, but sometimes, it really didn't help. It did keep his mind occupied, though. "Or was it just because you were insufferably ugly?"

He bit down on his tongue, literally, and the coppery flood of blood to his mouth was almost a welcome relief from the burning arcs across his back. His hands were tied, knees bent under him and face pressed to the ground, which was really rather a comfortable position in comparison to the sleeping arrangements. At least out here, he had room to breathe.

"You're really going to have to do better than this," he observed mock-cheerfully, even as he gasped for air. "I'm getting awfully bored with lashes. If you flay off all my skin, I shan't have any nerve endings left, and then I simply won't be able to feel it, thus defeating the - "

He wanted to finish the sentence, really he did, but one more whipcord of pain across his back and his vision clouded red, and he was left with nothing in his throat but a tiny, feeble whimper.

And then he heard something that made a curl of ice drop into his stomach (which was almost a comforting contrast, if it wasn't so terrifying).

"I see what you mean, shachou. You could have called me earlier."

The voice itself was like cold steel, and Joe felt himself start to shake. How long was he standing there. How long was he _listening_. He had never heard this man before in his life, but he knew, _knew_ in his bones exactly who it was.

The one-man walking torture chamber. The terror of POW camps across the whole of Asia. His name was Kino Kobayashi, but that was trivia at best - thanks to Polly, most people knew him as Satan's Right Hand.

_"More like his middle finger -"_

"Joe, are you even taking this seriously?"

"Of course I am, of course I am. I'll be sure to tell him so when I meet him."

"Joe!"

"I mean, what if he's left-handed? Did you ever even consider th-"

"Joe!!"

The memory was almost worse than the fear.

He heard a set of slow, measured steps behind him, deliberate and oddly light - in comparison to all the heavy-stepped prison guards, and the slow scuffle of his fellow camp-ers. The pain was something far away now, now that a cold terror had replaced it, sharpening his senses, making every detail stand out in high relief. He could have counted the molecules of dirt beneath him. He could have heard the sounds of a moth landing in the jungle.

He slowly lifted his face from the ground, gritting his teeth as his back protested. "What is it you want?" he hissed in a quiet, measured voice.

"From you?"

A sudden tap, at the base of his spine. A stick of some kind. Slowly it dragged up, up, up through the ruin of flesh until it buried itself in his hair, in the shaggy curled ends at the back of his neck.

"I want your silence."

"See, that's funny, I thought - "

The stick jammed forward, throwing him back down hard enough to see stars. "_Silence._"

He was starting to get the message.

"Every time you talk back to me, I shall cut off one of your fingers." The end of the stick stayed there, pressing him forward, grinding him in against the ground. "I'll start with your pinkies. And then your ring fingers, and so on, and so forth, until I allow myself the distinct pleasure of removing your thumbs. Do I make myself _very_ clear?"

Crystal, Joe thought. He very nearly said it aloud, too, but he rather liked his pinky fingers. And he had no doubts that the man meant business.

"Now. We're done with you. Get up."

Joe scrambled to his feet, and for the first time, got a good look at his nemesis.

He had an... _asian_ sort of face, which was to say, there wasn't anything distinguishing about it. The only odd point was the eyes - blue eyes, very pale, with the pupils shrunk almost down to nothing, even in the shade of thick trees.

Oh, and he was smiling. Quite angelically.

"Joe?"

Joe cocked an eyebrow and spread his lips, effectively conveying _You told me not to talk, I'm not talking, also, go die._

"...Wonderful. Could you do me a little favor?"

The unholy imitation of a grin widened. _Never_.

But all that Satan's Right Hand did in response was to twirl his walking stick around in his fingers, the very picture of nonchalance.

"Tell your friend Nikolai to come out here. I'd like to have a word with him."

The blood drained from Joe's face, and for a second, he opened his mouth, about to say 'NO.'

But it wouldn't make a difference. Nothing he _said_ could make a difference.

He spit at his feet as he left, anyway. No one said he couldn't do _that_.

And all it did was make that smile one shade brighter.

  
They found the coat.

It was buried under a pile of twisted metal.

"This proves _nothing_," Dex insisted, gripping the charred brown leather like a life preserver.

Frankie stopped and whipped around to face him. A few strands of hair had escaped from her bun, giving her a sudden air of wildness, a terrifying ferocity. "Oh, _doesn't it_?" She planted a hand on her hip, and the other swept out in a circle, taking in the burnt, half-buried wreck of a plane. "Look around you, Dex. Take a _good, hard look_."

He did.

"Joseph Sullivan is dead."

"_No._" He couldn't explain it, how could he explain something that was simply a feeling? But it was the strongest feeling he'd ever had. Because Joe _couldn't_ be dead. Not like this. Not when there was so much that Dex had never told him.

Frankie grabbed him by the front of the shirt and shook him. "_Stop hoping_."

"No."

"_He's gone_."

"He's not."

"I can't keep hoping."

"You never did."

Frankie released him, her eye blowing open in shock. "I what?"

And Dex was _looking_ at her, with something that ached and accused. "You just accepted it, right from the start. If I hadn't shown up, you'd never have searched for him. You would have just let him go like a bad memory. That's all he _is_ to you."

She stared. "That's not... he's not..."

"If you want to leave - fine." His lips pressed into a thin little line. "I can't stop you. I'm grateful for what you've done so far. But I'm not turning back."

Frankie felt something break inside her, a little, and her face softened. "But... where will you go? Where else is there?"

"I haven't found - a body, yet." He turned away, and she wasn't the only one breaking. "Gonna keep on searching."

He draped the jacket with a loving reverence on the propellor of the h110c. He shrugged out of his own outer layers, and rolled up his sleeves. Then, piece by piece, he started sifting through the rubble, searching. Always searching.

Frankie could only watch, and her heart ached but her head was done hoping. Because Joseph Sullivan was dead, and nothing they could do would bring him back.

"Commander!"

The voice sounded tinny and far away.

"Commander!"

She jerked back to full awareness, belatedly realizing that _she_ was this 'Commander' and whatever it was, it sounded urgent. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I think you need to come see this!"

She met Dex's eyes over a broken piece of hull, and he nodded, and she tried to ignore the way his eyes were lighting up. They ran.

"What it is?"

"Look, here - " The men were circled around a corner of the clearing, and it took a minute before Frankie realized what she was looking at, under months of the jungle taking back its territory.

Someone had been through here. Not just someone - many someones, at least ten, and they came to the clearing and back out the way they came. They weren't just passing through.

"We're following the trail?" There was a pressed excitement lacing Dex's voice, leaving him nearly breathless.

"They could have come to salvage the parts." Frankie hated that she had to be responsible, but she _couldn't_ hope, when this just made the chance of survival less likely.

"_Frankie_. We _have_ to."

She hesitated, even as her men began tracking already. "Just don't get your hopes up, Dex," she whispered.

"Hope is all I have," he hissed. "We're following the trail."

They followed the trail.

And very nearly got themselves killed, when a POW camp seemed to grow up out of the woodwork and they _almost_ fell into it, literally.

Frankie had to grab Dex with both arms, to keep him from running in. "We do _not_ know what happened, and I'm not about to let you get yourself _killed_," she growled in his ear, and he tried to wrench away but she was just plain stronger than him.

"Let me go," he muttered desperately.

"No." His hands tightened. "Stop that. We wait. We watch. We set up surveillance equipment. We _do not_ go running in like halfwits, guns blazing, because _we know nothing and we will die_."

Slowly, bit by bit, he relaxed in her grip. Wisely, she continued holding on, not falling for it. But then he turned his head so he could whisper in return. "So does that mean you're staying?"

She laughed in a puffed breath, surprised. "Of course. I am at your disposal as long as you need me."

There was a long moment, their hearts jarring against each other in an uneven rhythm, her gloved hands still digging into his arms as he fought for his breath and some semblance of emotional control. She was right, of course. And he could never have come this far without her. "Frankie?"

"Mm?"

"Thanks."

She let him go and kissed the side of his head, sweetly, the way his mother used to do in a memory that seemed so far away, now. "I care about him too, you know."

  
They kept the camp under a tight surveillance. Cameras, microphones, everything that they could get away with and many things they probably shouldn't've. They could not have known the place better. They knew which guards were sleeping around, and which ones had wives back home. They knew that the famous torturer had set himself up about a month ago, and he seemed to be waiting for something, though apparently no one knew what it was. They knew that they'd inadvertently stumbled upon one of the most legendary, secret, important POW camps in all of Manchuria, but they _didn't_ know the full prisoner roster, and they did not know what happened to Joe Sullivan.

A week passed. Two weeks. They were halfway into the third before something happened.

  
They called all the prisoners out, lined them up in a straggly row and kicked them into place. It was hard to tell Joe apart from his neighbors now, even though he was clearly the tallest - they were all covered in a layer of grime and blood and fear. But his eyes glittered, and he wasn't surprised when Kino stopped, the ever-present stick tapping against his boot.

"Sullivan. Haven't seen you around lately, but it seems silence suits you well." A cruel grin twisted the man's features, making him look less and less human by the second.

_I whisper Shakespeare at night_, Joe's eyes said.

"I'd thought you would surely have cracked by now. No matter. I am patient, and quite fond of your fingers." He actually leaned in and touched them, almost as if he was going to _stroke_ them in some sick parody of a caress, but Joe jerked away, and his lip curled to bare teeth.

Two prison guards rushed forward, guns at the ready, but Kino held a hand up, stopping them in their tracks. Like it didn't _matter_ that Joe was rebellious, like it wasn't _important_.

"Leave us."

They cast a wary glance at the sheer number of prisoners, despite their tied hands and feet, versus one man in his immaculate clothes, armed with only a stick and a long knife. But, obediently, they retreated. Kino turned back to the prisoners with a catlike grin.

No one moved.

"Excellent. Now. I've brought you all out here to witness an application of the scientific process in regards to the gathering of information. Most of you have no idea what that means. Regardless."

He went to the first person in line, a girl of about fifteen, and pulled her forward.

"I will hurt her, until someone gives me the coordinates I need, or until she dies. Then I will move onto the next, the next, and the next." He met the eyes of each of his intended victims in turn, until he'd grazed the entire line. "And if you are all dead, I go home, and no one wins, but a lot of people will die. Are we all clear on this?"

No one moved.

"Wonderful. What's your name?" he asked, squeezing the girl's already bruised and bloody wrist.

She winced, and whisped something hoarse and quiet under her breath.

"Blossom? Lovely. Now," and, with one hand, he slid his knife free and pressed the edge to the back of her hand. "Give me the coordinates to Dr. Totenkopf's lab, or I will cut off the skin of her hands and peel it away in one glorious piece."

Silence.

"No one?"

Silence.

"All right th-"

"_Stop_."

Everyone turned. Joe stepped forward, and if his eyes had been cold before, they were _blazing_ now. "Let go of her."

"Oh, Joey, you're breaking your vow for _this_? She isn't even _worth_ anything."

"Let her go."

And it was true, about the Shakespeare. His voice was steady, and clear - ringing across the compound in the unmistakble tone of command.

Kino sighed, and let go. Then he moved toward his dissenter in a slow, swinging stroll, his soft boots making barely any sound on the hard ground. "Give me your hand."

He tried to step back but Kino lunged, until he was gripping it, his wrist circled tight in slender fingers. He _stroked_ through them, until he'd isolated the pinky finger. "Say goodbye, little Joey."

And suddenly, Joe's wrists twisted, and he'd gotten control of the knife - flipped it around in his hands, and before Kino could make a sound, he'd driven it hard into the torturer's stomach, then dragged it up until he could lodge it deep in the man's heart.

"Goodbye."

Blood poured over his hands and his arms and his legs. He closed the dead man's eyes with a shaking thumb, and felt nothing.

  
Frankie had a hand clamped over Dex's mouth, a leg pinning him to his seat, and really, this would have been exciting if it hadn't been so dire.

"_Shut. Up._" she hissed, trying for 'a situation of life and death' but really only ending up with 'i understand', because she _did_. If it wasn't her responsibility to keep Dex from doing something stupid, she might very well have been running out there herself.

His eyes were _dancing_. "He's alive, Frankie, he's alive!"

"He is. But we need a plan."

They sobered briefly, watching the soldiers swarming the clearning, like they weren't... actually sure what to do about this, because they'd _all_ been afraid of Kino.

"Drills," said Frankie, into the silence.

"What?"

"The Subterraneous League."

"_What?_"

"Commander!!" The lieutenant barged into the camp, and he was breathing hard. "We have to get back to the base. They're being attacked by the Japanese!"

_No_, Dex thought, starting to panic. _No, no, no..._ "Frankie, no. Don't leave."

But she was already straightening up, and turning off equipment. Dex nearly screamed when the screen went dark.

"_Please!_ You can't leave now!"

"You're coming with us." Frankie grabbed his arm and pulled him in close. "_Don't worry. I have a plan._"

He drew in a shaky breath, gulped down his reservations, and followed her.

  
It had been five months, now.

Five months since the article. Polly had never felt like a better reporter. She'd gotten at least a thousand new readers to the newspaper, done three more big stories and everyone was talking about it, everyone had spread the word. The perfect hero, the public said. A wonderful perspective on the war, the critics proclaimed. It really was a golden age.

She'd never felt worse about herself, either.

  
Shanghai wasn't a place for a blonde lady in heels, but Polly was determined to have this story. _Absolutely_ determined, even if it meant that her dress was soaked in seawater and her hair was a mess and her nails were chipping. Ships from England were crowding the port, and all the other reporters were in Nanjing but she'd had a feeling something would be happening further north, and her feelings were usually right.

So now she was here, on the pier, surrounded by refugees and shouting British soldiers. She took picture after picture, barely stopping to jot down a quote here and there, she'd make sense of it all later but if there was one thing she'd learned about this business, it was that a picture was worth a thousand words.

Someone grabbed her arm. "The hell are you doing?! Either help us or get out of the way!"

Elbows jarred into her stomach and she jerked her way free, glaring. She was here to do her _job_, not turn into a hero herself. "Why don't _you_ make yourself useful instead of telling me off!"

The man - he was a British soldier, big and bulky, with a face that seemed permanently scowling. "Now look here, miss. This isn't any place to be a tourist."

"I'm not a tourist!" She cried, nearly stamping her feet in anger. Someone pushed her from behind and she was tossed up against him - he grabbed her arms, to steady her.

"Yeah? Then what's this for?"

He had a hand wrapped around the straps of her camera before she could even protest, and she struggled hard, her lip curling. "I'm a _reporter!_ Let go!!"

But his face closed off at the word reporter, and his eyes hardened, and he closed one hand around the camera, crushing it effortlessly, then dropped it into the sea.

"_Why did you do that?!_"

"Go home, reporter. Stay out this." And then he let her go, and disappeared into the crowd.

So many pictures. _So many pictures_ and they were all gone, gone and she wasn't going to have _anything_ and that was the only camera she'd brought with her.

Polly managed to stumble out of the massive flow of people, trying vainly to hold back her tears. God_damnit_. She'd come all this way and she wasn't going to have _anything_ to show for it, was she?

Finally, she couldn't hold it back any longer, and collapsed to the ground, shoulders shaking with sobs. _I knew I shouldn't've come here. They said it was too much for me and they were right, I shouldn't even be here. I should just go home._

"You know, most people are happy about the evacuation."

Another Brit. She just couldn't deal with another Brit, not right now. "Go away."

"No, seriously. This is going to save a lot of lives."

Curiosity, that fickle master, made her look up despite herself, and her breath caught in her throat.

He was standing at an angle, a few feet away, with his boots planted and his hands in his pockets, staring out at the pier. The low sun caught his hair, and his eyes - and the silver insignia on his aviator's jacket. American volunteers. But he was British, she was sure of that. Why was he here? Where did he come from?

He was smiling, almost serenely, but there was a tired edge in the corners of his eyes. Everyone had that, at least. Everyone who'd been here for more than week. Like the weight of the world was so pressing. No one could escape that. But despite it all, she could tell that he was genuinely happy about all this. The heroism of it. What must she look like, crying about a _camera_, of all things?

"Yes," she finally said, following his line of sight to the harbor and trying to convince herself that it wasn't worth being upset. "I suppose it will."

"Then why the tears?" And he'd turned to look at her now, and she realized with a little jolt that his eyes were blue - very, very blue.

She shakily gulped down her reservations, and tried to look strong. "I - it's nothing, really."

He _snorted_, completely inelegantly, breaking the moment. "Yeah, all right. Really. Why were you crying."

Polly gritted her teeth. "Because one of your _British soldiers_ crushed my camera and threw it into the water!!"

He stared at her for a second, brow furrowed. Then he laughed.

"Seriously? That's it, that's why you're crying?"

"Yes!!" She pushed herself to her feet - which didn't give her much of an advantage anyway, but it made her feel better - and wiped her cheeks with one angry swipe of her hand. "Do you _realize_ what kind of monopoly I could've had?! All the other reporters are back in Nanjing, I'm the _only_ one here and I'm going to have _nothing_ to show for it!!"

His eyebrows were nearly touching his hairline. "Er- well... look, just... calm down. It's going to be fine."

"No, it _won't_ be. Just - take your sympathy and go far far away and _leave me alone!!_"

It should have been _very_ clear. _Exceedingly_ clear. Crystal, in fact. But the stupid British idiot was still standing there, smiling a little, as if he couldn't decide whether to pat her on the head or start laughing again.

"...Come with me."

"What?" Polly stared at him.

"Come on, come with me. I've got something for you."

He turned and began shouldering against the crowd and it's all Polly could do to keep up, hands clutching her notebook like her very life depended on it (which, at the moment, it really did).

They got to a dingy bar several streets away, and there were more American volunteers there, spilling out into the street and dragging on their cigarettes. Her mysterious new friend - and she didn't even know his name - wentup to one of them, clapped him on the shoulder.

"Dennis. I need your help."

The whole circle laughed, and 'Dennis' rolled his eyes with the expression of the long-suffering. "What can I do ya for, sir?"

"I need..." and Polly couldn't see what he was doing, _where_ was that hand going? The chuckles took on a nervous edge and he was smirking, the epitome of coy. "...to borrow this."

It was a camera. A _nice_ camera, actually, and Polly could swear her heart did a small somersault at the sight of it - of the _thought_ of what he was doing.

"Oh, come on, Joe..."

"Just for a little bit! You won't miss it." Joe, then. It suited him - simple and straightforward, and he smiled a perfect smile, all lips and eyes and soaked in charm. "Captain's honor."

Everyone laughed at _that_ one. "Sir, your honor ain't worth a thing," someone said, and Joe at least had the grace to look guilty.

"Be that as it may, this - " and he dropped the camera in Polly's hands, so fast that she nearly dropped it. " - is for a lady."

  
If Polly could ever admit the truth to herself - which she could, but she _wouldn't_ \- it wasn't about the story at all.

It _was_ about the mystery girl. Polly wasn't entirely sure which was worse - if she was someone completely different (dark hair and femme fatale, perhaps), because that would mean that she wasn't what Joe really wanted - but if she _did_ look like Polly, then maybe - maybe she was just being replaced.

But it didn't _matter_ now, did it? Polly scowled at herself in the mirror and fumbled for her lipstick, trying to think of something else, anything else, because she'd thought this all before. A hundred times, at least. _Good job, Polly Perkins, you killed your boyfriend, now what?_

But how was she supposed to know? No one had ever written a book called 'How to Sabotage a Plane Without Killing Anyone', and she'd _cut his fuel line_ \- wasn't that supposed to make it unable to fly in the first place?

_Enough of this, Polly,_ she told herself, sternly. _You can't change the past_.

So, like every morning, she swept out the door in curls and high heels, met the day, carried on. She kept on telling herself, 'it wasn't your fault'.

She just wished she could have seen him, one last time.

  
They'd thrown him in a pit.

It had been one of Kino's torture chambers, he was pretty certain of that. Twelve feet deep, at the least. Much too deep for any reasonably-sized person to get out of. Stone lining the walls - it must have been a well at some point - and an iron grate over the top, where he could just barely see the edge of a crescent moon.

The ground under him was made up of bodies.

He was so far beyond himself that this little fact didn't even faze him. He accepted it with a quiet clarity, and simply made sure he wasn't sitting on anyone's face, or anything. He didn't want to be disrespectful.

It occurred to him, for the first time since all this mess had started, that he was going to die.

A smile cracked his face in two and he leaned his head on his knees. _Yes,_ he thought, _I really am going to die. This is the last sight I'll ever see._ No heroes to save him. No miracles to fly in from the sky, because he was dead to the world and no one, no one out there cared about him.

He leaned back then, and spread himself out, lay his legs up against the wall so he could stare up at the sky.

"But really," he whispered hoarsely, "I died a long time ago." It had been months shince he'd flown a plane. Months since he'd been a real person, and the effort of clinging on to himself had taken too much out of him and he was just a wisp, now, just one more little ticking sound, but no one was listening.

_I wonder what Polly's up to_. He could see her - he'd spent too much time hating her lately, all he could see now was the way she smiled, the way her face lit up when he did something unexpected. True, he almost always had an ulterior motive, but it was worth it, even then. He did like making her happy, when there was something in it for him.

She'd be over him by now. He imagined she'd cried a lot at first, and been upset that she was crying, because it made her face blotchy and awful and messed her makeup. But she'd be done with that now. Riding on the wave of her success, and he didn't doubt that she was successful, not with the kind of stories she was finding in Nanjing. She'd be fine.

_Frankie_. Frankie wouldn't change, of course. She wouldn't've even cried for him, he'd bet. She'd be fine.

And the next place his head went made his heart stop in his chest and his eyes snapped wide open.

_Dex_.

He tried. He tried as hard as his tired mind could, but he simply could not imagine what Dex would be doing with himself, if Joe wasn't there. That very thought - the thought of Dex _without him_, alone - he very nearly flew into a panic. It was physically distressing.

_Dex, oh god, Dex_.

If Dex were here, he'd've figured some way to break out a long time ago. He'd never have given up. He would've taken Kino apart piece by piece just for _looking_ at Joe, let alone all that he'd put him through. _Probably get himself killed in the process_, Joe thought, but it was such a warmth to his heart, and none of this was true anyway. Anything could happen in his fantasy world.

In his fantasy world, they'd break out of this hell together, and Dex would be able to fix his plane, and they'd fly off into the clouds and then they'd go _home_. And they'd do everything that Joe had missed, everything that he'd wished for in the past months. He'd be safe.

He rolled onto his side, curled into the fetal position, and started crying.

He couldn't help it. Didn't have to help it. There was nothing to lose, here, nothing to keep him company except his own thoughts, no one to listen or judge or hurt him or comfort him, here he was just another dead body that coincedentally could still move.

_I miss him._

It was an obvious sort of thought, all things considered - he missed a lot of things - but it hit him like the business end of an axe. I _miss_ him.

He saw Frankie, splayed out in his bed on the day that changed everything. _There's someone else_, she'd said. _You'll figure it out soon enough._

He figured it out.

He loved Dex. He'd loved Dex since the day they met, only he was too stupid and too full of himself to realize it. And now he was going to die, and Dex would never know.

He did the only thing it was possible to do when you're stuck in a pit awaiting certain death and you've just realized you're in love with your best friend.

He laughed.

  
"So, uh..."

Frankie sighed. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Dex, _spit it out_."

They were, generally speaking, underground. It was the only fact Dex knew about this situation, which was incredibly weird to begin with, but Frankie assured him that this machine was a) entirely safe, and b) absolutely capable of getting them inside the camp without dying.

So, Dex trusted her. He _had_ to trust her because he'd just spent a very long month going quietly insane in a corner while Frankie did her duty to the Queen's Country and blew up a bunch of Japanazis.

_"What if he's dead?! If he dies because of this, I'll - "_

"He's not going to die, if he's made it this long, he can wait a little longer."

"He killed Kino the Torturer! Satan's Right Hand!"

"Yes and they should be giving him a medal. Will you shut up and find something useful to do?!"

But, true to her word, here they were. Miles underground. Cramped inside a machine that was essentially a giant drill.

Dex ignored her, fiddled with some of the controls.

"Don't touch that."

"I wasn't!"

This rescue mission should've been a lot more exciting. With theme music, probably, and smart uniforms and radio signals every other minute. But radio waves couldn't travel far enough underground, the only music was the grind of the engines, and Frankie was wearing a simple tank top and camo pants.

Dex was wearing Joe's jacket, which was the only passably significant thing about this venture at all.

He looked up at Frankie. He was so used to seeing her in her military uniform that civilian clothes made her almost look... like someone else entirely. It was the hair, he decided. She actually did have a lot of hair, and it was in a ponytail now - still servicable, but utterly different from the usual tight bun. It was _weird_.

Finally, he got back around to the question he'd been trying to ask for the better part of an hour.

"Did you and Joe ever..."

But he trailed off into a sudden fit of terrified silence, when she turned her head and fixed him with one pointed eye.

"Did we ever _what?_"

He licked his lips, throat suddenly dry. "...Were you guys sleeping together?"

There was a long silence, that was almost uncomfortable but mostly just long. Then Frankie's face twisted, and her lips slowly stretched into a grin. "Yes."

Oh.

Well.

Okay.

_Now_ was the time for the long, _awkward_ silence.

"He asked me once," Frankie started, and when Dex looked over, she was facing away - leaning her temple on the window, and all he could see was her eyepatch. "Why he didn't love me. It was the day before the crash."

Dex's eyebrows could've touched the ceiling. "...And?"

"I told him there was someone else."

His heart was sinking slowly, inch by inch. "That girl he met, back in-"

"It's not Polly."

He looked up, and Frankie was staring at him again, and this time, it sent a very clear message. _You know the answer as well as I do._

Dex shook his head, slowly at first, then faster. "No. _No._ He doesn't love me. He _doesn't_."

She cracked a smile and leaned back in her seat. "I beg to differ."

"Frankie, _please_." His face was dark and cold, and disapproving. "Isn't it enough that he's alive?"

"No." And with that, her own face lost all its mirth. "It isn't."

He stared.

"Dex, he loves you. I know he does. Joseph has a hard time understanding what he wants." Her eyes were digging into him, slowly and surely, like the drill they were riding in. "You can't let _your_ fear hold you back from something you both need."

And Dex went very quiet, and turned his eyes away, fixed on the controls without seeing them. He thought about it.

It hadn't even occurred to him, but she was right.

Joe _didn't_ know what he wanted. Oh, there were things he knew - he knew he liked flying and he liked saving the world, but he was a mercenary rather than a hero, and that's because he needed someone else to tell him, to let him know that he was necessary. He thought of all the projects that Joe had started, with fire behind his eyes, only to cancel them later, because he had nothing to _do_ with them. He lived his life according to what other people wanted of him.

And Dex could identify with that, really he could. The difference was, Dex _did_ know what he wanted, he'd just been afraid of taking it.

"You have another chance," Frankie said, into the relative silence. "Don't waste it."

He wouldn't.

  
It was raining when Polly finally made up her mind. She had to tell someone and she couldn't tell the press, what else was she supposed to do?

She must've heard the name a hundred times. _Dex this, Dex that, oh Dex would love this, did you know Dex once built a working engine out of scrap metal, I bet Dex would've learned three dialects of Chinese by now_, etc etc etc. It had almost been enough to make her jealous, if that wasn't such a stupid thought.

But if anyone deserved to know the truth, she supposed he did.

Getting to the base, however, was proving to be... something of a problem. Generally, most people knew where it was. In a sort of... 'that way ish' kind of sense. But everyone seemed to have a different idea of how to get there - some said she could hire a plane, but when she got to the airport they laughed and said she'd be better off taking a boat - that is, if she didn't want to get shot. Every port in the harbor referred her further down the line, and further and further, until her hair was utterly limp and her coat was soaked through and her shoes were thoroughly ruined. She was out of pier, and patience, and options.

"Looking for something, miss?"

The speaker was - well, he was unspeakable, as a matter of fact, and for a moment Polly huffed and pretended she hadn't heard him. Probably wanted money, or worse. Dirty old man.

"'Cos it seems, you bein' all the way down here and whatnot, you must have a mighty good reason for it."

"And if I do?" she finally turned to glare at him. "What's it to you?"

He absentmindedly dug a finger into his ear, and Polly winced, visibly. "You can't get to the island by boat. At least, not without the right _kind_ of boat."

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," she ground out, but it was easy to see that she was hanging on his every word, now.

"You've got to be let in, see, and they only let in the people they wish to let in." He made an awful sound in the back of his throat, like someone was - anyway, it was disgusting, and Polly didn't want to think about what it resembled. "But I can do it."

She stared for a long time, not quite comprehending him. "I'm sorry?"

"I can get you there." And then he spit, over the side of the boat, and Polly clapped a hand over her mouth. "You know. If you were lookin' to find Sky Captain."

Polly was utterly horrified, completely disgusted, and felt exactly how a dead rat looked. Not to mention simply hearing that title, in someone else's voice - it wrung her from the inside out.

"He's dead," she whispered.

"Wot?"

"Sky Captain - Joe Sullivan is dead."

The toothless old man in the boat beamed at her. "No 'es not."

"I'm sorry to burst your bubble," and her voice cracked, "but he is. He's dead. Almost six months now."

"Nah," and she could hardly believe it, but he _waved his hand_ like she'd just told him he should probably take a bath sometime this century. "He woulda told me if 'e was dyin'."

It occurred to Polly that this man was absolutely, completely, mad. Insane, in fact. She shouldn't listen to a word he said, and somewhere, in some corner of this city, she'd find someone who could lead her to Sky Captain's base of operations.

"O'course, 'e won't last long, not long at all, with those ties on their way."

_Not listening. Absolutely not listening_.

"Right berry-crats they were, all done up in their three-piece suits." He was lighting up a pipe now, and tucking it between his lips as he spoke. Polly sighed.

"I think you mean bureaucrats."

"There, that's the one." He eyed her, and she drew her coat a little tighter around herself, but he didn't seem to care. "Soon there won't be anything left at all."

A cold chill seemed to descend upon her, with those words. "What.... exactly do you mean by that?"

His eyes said, _I've got your interest now, haven't I?_ But he answered her question, and flat out, too, which was almost enough to make her rethink her earlier assessment.

"They've only got three days to bring him back, or the feds take the whole island back."

Something settled in her, like the ripples from a stone smoothing out and leaving the water's surface as clean and clear as the sky. "No. They won't."

The man's eyebrows crept up an inch or not. "Oh?" he drawled.

"No." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "I won't let them. I can't let them do that."

Joe or no Joe, the government had _no right_ to lay claim like that, and if she wasn't the best reporter in Manhattan - all right, _one_ of the best - well, something vaguely approaching the idea of possibly someday being the best - she'd find a way, legally or illegally, of keeping their public noses out of private business.

She turned to go, full of energy and fire and the best kind of motivation, but a thought occurred, and she turned back. "Can you take a message to Dex Dearborn?"

The man grinned around his pipe with filthy intent. "He's not in right now, but I can tell it to 'im when 'e returns."

"All right. Tell him..." She looked off into the distance, into the mist, and tried to find the right words to say. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"Just that? 'I'm sorry'?"

"Yes." That's all there was to it, really. Either he'd understand or he wouldn't, but she didn't want his forgiveness - she certainly didn't deserve it.

  
Well, _some_one was trying to keep him alive. Which was nice, even if it didn't mean anything.

Every now and then, someone would drop food on his head. Sometimes it was every day, sometimes more like every few days, he wasn't actually anything approaching certain. Days and nights were blurring into one mass of light and color, and he simply lay back and watched the tiny bit of sky that he could see, half-floating on old memories. Sometimes he could even forget where he really was, and for hours on end he'd see nothing but clouds and the bright hot sunlight that always existed above them.

He'd been foodless for at least several days now, and was well on the way to utter delirium, when he felt a sort of... rumbling.

He didn't pay it any attention, it had nothing to do with _him_, but it did bring him a little back into himself.

It didn't stop. For fuck's sake, what _was_ that? It was almost like the sound of a monstrously huge engine, but they had nothing like that around the camp, and it seemed to be coming from... _underneath_ him.

He pushed up to his shaking elbows and frowned.

He was curious, despite himself. It didn't have anything to do with him, but it was the first break in the monotony he'd had in... oh, a long time.

By god, it was getting closer still. Unbelievable. It was far too big to be a helicopter, he could tell that now - and the illusion went calmly at the bidding of rationality, no matter how desperately he tried to cling to it. No, he was in a pit, and there was a thunderous roaring sound, and bits of dirt were beginning to fall in on him.

He was probably going to get buried alive, and _that_ thought was enough to scare any pilot. But he curled his hands into fists, and closed his eyes, and listened with all his might.

Voices. People above were starting to hear it, or feel it, and they were starting to panic. Shouting. Gunshots - he didn't even flinch, and some cooly detached part of him hoped that the guards were shooting each other in sheer confusion and panic. It was like an earthquake. Then there was the unmistakable sound of breaking, of utter bereavment. The screaming started.

All he could think was, _At least nothing's caved in yet._

He didn't bother to hope that anyone would remember him, and even if they did - no one would think further than saving their own skins.

In less than ten seconds, he was proven to be utterly wrong.

"Come on!" someone shouted at him in a voice like a big bass drum. "Camp is breaking up! You must get out!"

"Nik?" Joe cried, utterly unable to believe it. "I thought you were _dead_!"

"Psh, I am not so easy to kill." There was the sound of wrenching steel, and a very familiar, very welcome face was grinning in a silhouette. "Come!"

Joe gave him a dark look. "I can't fly, you know."

"Sure you can." And then he tossed down a long, knotted rope and it was the best sight Joe had ever seen. "Climb, brother, and you will fly again."

He climbed, hand over hand, the knots tearing into his dry skin but it felt so good, it felt like freedom and light and so many other things.

"Nik," he murmured, taking the hand gratefully when he was close enough and letting himself be pulled up, like a rag doll. "What's going on? Who's attacking?"

"I think you had better see for yourself."

Joe looked, and his heart stopped in his chest.

_Dex_.

Dex, wearing Joe's favorite jacket, with a gun in one hand and shading his eyes with the other. Looking.

Looking for him.

"Dex!" he shouted, and his voice cracked but he didn't care. "_Dex!!_"

It was like a scene in a movie, you know, where the camera slows and everything else fades into the background, and you can see every detail of the hero's face, you can count his eyelashes, and the music swells and you _know_ what's coming but you love it anyway.

Dex's eyes lit up, and he smiled, and Joe _ran_ at him.

He grabbed the lapels of his own jacket, pulled Dex in close, and for a second, there was nothing but harsh breathing and the sound of racing hearts between then.

And then he kissed him.

...And kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until they were breathless and gasping and stupid with euphoria, and Dex's hands were all over him - his shoulders, sides, up his neck and cupping his cheeks and Joe nodded, yes. Yes. I'm alive. I'm here. You're here.

"Dex-"

"_Joe._"

"Dex, I love you-"

"I know."

"Oh god, I love you, I love you." He collapsed, buried his forehead in Dex's neck. He kept repeating himself, over and over, it was all he could say. "I love you."

"I know, I know." He held him in a loose embrace, kept him steady, took his weight. "Love you too, Cap."

"Can we get out of here yet?!" a voice shouted, somewhere to his left and it really was a day of miracles.

"_Frankie?!_"

She was covered in dirt and sweat and blood, a gun in each hand, and she looked like she was having the time of her life. "What, you didn't think he'd gotten here all by himself, did you?"

"I didn't -" but Dex cut him off, with a loud "HEY!" and he started giggling like a patient in an insane asylum. He couldn't help it. He was so painfully, deliriously happy and there was no one he'd rather be with, right at this second.

Dex's mouth was close to his ear and he could _feel_ the way he smiled. "Ready to go home, Cap?"

His breath caught in his throat. "...Are we going to fly?"

"Absolutely."

  
For a week, Joe did nothing but slowly grow accustomed to his own skin again - he slept, he ate, he spent endless hours pillowed on Dex's chest, caged within his arms. He recovered.

They didn't talk much. The real things were too delicate to talk about, and anything else seemed painfully trivial. Completely aside from his healing body, his emotions were too raw to deal with the outside world.

And Dex? Dex was just too relieved to have him back, too heady with the realization of everything that should have been, and it was all too big for him to take in. So he didn't. For a week, he was nothing but a doctor, a pillow, and a crutch, and on Monday morning, he woke up to the delicious and utterly unprecedented feeling of lips on his.

He kissed back for a long, beautiful moment and there weren't any birds singing or violins playing, but there damn well should have been.

"Good morning," he murmured with a wry surprise, and when he opened his eyes, he was overjoyed to see that Joe was smiling at him - that devil's own smile of his, and for once it didn't make Dex's insides twist in guilt. He didn't have anything to be guilty of.

"I've had enough lazing about. We're getting back to work today."

_Well, whatever you want to call it,_ he thought, but not without affection. "Yeah, okay. Sure thing, boss."

Joe's eyebrows twitched, and - huh. Well, he'd have to file _that_ away for future use.

The crazy thing was how easy it was, fitting their relationship into the pattern of their lives. It was like they'd been doing this for years, they'd just forgotten about it until now. Of course, it wasn't like it lacked surprises. They were working on a machine together and Dex kept swearing, under his breath, and next thing he knew Joe was attached to the back of his neck like some sort of coiled catlike leech, nearly purring. Or, the time that Joe fell out of the cockpit of his new plane, pushed his goggles up, and out of nowhere Dex had the absolutely irresistible urge to back him up against the nearest surface and lick the sweat from his neck - so he did.

So it was exciting, but it wasn't _weird_. Everyone on base seemed accepted the change without blinking - and half of them just laughed and said, _What took you so long?_ Which shouldn't've been hilarious but it was.

It was several weeks, then, before Dex brought anything up again, and when he did, it was at a completely innocuous moment - Joe was sprawled over the couch in the rec room, looking at the newspaper but not really reading it; understandably, as Dex's hands were buried in his hair and he was gently massaging his scalp in slow circles.

"Tell me what happened."

He left it open, because there so many things had 'happened', and it didn't matter where Joe started, really. But Dex wanted - and needed - to hear it all.

Joe was quiet for a long minute. It was the quiet of organizing his thoughts, of trying to find one end of a mental rope to even know where to begin.

He started with Frankie, and Polly. The politics Dex knew, mostly, but he'd kept his relationships out of their telegrams and he'd wanted to tell someone for so long. So he told him, and Dex was simultaneously best friend and lover, appreciating the delicate balancing act he'd ended up doing, but not bothering to hide the twinge of jealousy that talking about it provoked.

Joe laughed softly and leaned his head to the side, and Dex kissed up the line of his neck. "They're nothing like you, Dex. I mean it. It was just - I didn't understand why I wasn't happy, and ended up using them to try and fill the space you left. Does that make any sense?"

"Absolutely," he said, because it did, and it was such a Joe thing to do. Not content with empty spaces. Filling in the blank pages of the world.

And then, slowly, haltingly, he told the rest. About Nikolai, and Kino, and the vow of silence that he simmered under for months. Killing him. Lying on his back in the pit and realizing what truly mattered, and only regretting that he'd never get another chance.

"God," Dex whispered, pressing his face into the side of neck. "We're so lucky, Joe. We both are."

"Don't I know it," he muttered, turning his head until he was nuzzling against him, buried in the touch and sound and smell of him. "I'm the luckiest man alive."

"You're lucky to _be_ alive," Dex pointed out, and when Joe opened his eyes, they were bright and alive with emotion in a way he'd never seen them before.

"I know who to thank for that," he said, and Dex turned red.

  
The next day, Polly called.

"_You sabotaged my plane!!_"

Dex decided that it was a matter of good politics and his own sanity to hide out in his office. He could technically still hear what was going on, through the wall that separated his from Joe's, but he could _pretend_ he hadn't. That was the important thing.

"No. No. I don't think you're hearing me right. I want _nothing_ to do with you, Polly Perkins. In every sense of the word. I don't want to see you, hear you, hear anybody speak _of_ you, and I certainly don't - _no_ I will not apologize for something that I did not do!"

Dex considered investing in earplugs.

"_Get out of my life!!_"

A few very loud seconds later, that Dex could clearly picture as Joe storming out of his door, his own blew forcefully open. "She wants to speak to you," Joe bit, his voice full of acid. Dex made the astute assumption that it wasn't directed at him.

"Yeah?" He made to pick up the phone on his desk, but slowly, because he knew that look, and Joe wasn't done here.

"...Did you... talk to her, then? After," _after we thought you were dead,_ Dex finished mentally. He shook his head.

"Never spoke to her before in my life, Cap. Scout's honor." He put a hand over his heart, then picked up the phone and cradled it to his ear. Joe flopped down in the chair next to the door, apparently intent on staying.

"Dex?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get my message?"

Because, well, the truth was - he'd never _spoken_ to her before, no. But they had communicated. There was Old John's cryptic message - and he didn't actually know what that was about, nor did he care - but more importantly, there'd been a pile of newspapers on his desk when he'd gotten home.

_Shady dealing regarding the Sky Captain estate.  
The public cries out for justice for their favorite hero.  
Government officials arrested for suspected property theft.  
Sky Captain estate back in the hands of his devoted team._

He knew he owed her more than anyone could possibly imagine. But Joe was glaring at him, balefully.

"Uh, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, never _mind_." She hung up and he did too, shrugging.

"No idea, Cap. Honest."

Joe sighed, and slouched in the chair until his legs were dangling off of one arm. "Women. I will never understand them."

And Dex cracked a private little grin.

  
She was standing by the window like something out of a painting, for once dressed to accentuate her curves, rather than downplay them. The dress was scandalously revealing - both in front, in back, and all the way up the sides. She'd even curled her hair and put makeup on.

Joe folded his arms and leaned in the doorway. "All right, who are you, and what did you do with Frankie Cook?"

Easy, as it always was, between them. She laughed. "Don't you like it?"

"I can almost see your knickers."

"I'm not wearing any."

"Why am I not surprised?"

They both laughed, then, but when she came over, he took a step back.

"I can't, you're too pretty," he muttered, and the sad thing was, it was true. Too pretty, too fine, too much for him when she wasn't someone to fill the space.

Frankie smiled, warmly. "I am happy for you, Joseph."

"I could blame you."

"Oh please, you never listen to me, no matter what I say."

"No - I could blame you for everything." Joe's eyes were glassy, distant. "She sabotaged my plane, Frankie. She did this on purpose."

The too, too beautiful lady sighed, and turned, and her hips swayed as she strolled back to the window. Joe didn't even notice. "You have to let it go."

"_Let it go?_" Joe was nearly spitting in anger, unable to believe what he was hearing, and from _who_. "I could have died. I nearly did, if it hadn't been for Dex, and you."

"I had nothing to do with it, but that's not the point." He could only see her in silhouette, and everything about it was alien, unfamiliar. Feminine. Something in him recoiled and he let it, for once. "Nothing good will come of you holding a grudge. What's past is past. It's time to move on."

He opened his mouth but she wouldn't let him argue.

"_Be grateful_, Joe. What if it hadn't happened at all? Regardless of what I said, would you have ever figured out the shape of that hole in your heart?"

He tried to speak. Really he did. But the words had gotten tangled in a knot halfway up his throat, and he couldn't even hope to sort them out.

"Go home, Joseph." Her voice was bittersweet, and perhaps a little regretful. Guilty. Gentle. "Go home to your boy, and the next time we see each other, this will all be nothing more than a faded memory."

He took one step backwards, then another. Gripped the doorframe like he could transform it into a shield. He tried to speak - couldn't - and turned to leave, feeling a hundred different kinds of raw emotions.

"...Joseph?"

When he looked back, she'd tilted her head, and the sunlight fell across her face, lighting it up to the exclusion of everything. Her cocky grin, the eyepatch, the single eye glittering with triumphs she had yet to attain. He'd never know her, not all of her, but then, he wasn't meant to.

He did _love_ her, but he wasn't _in love_.

"If you ever need my help, you know how to find me."

He smiled, and raised his hand in a perfect salute. "That I do, sir. Sky Captain out."

 

[**Take Control**](http://iLike.com/s/10nc)

_Take control of the atmosphere  
Take me far away from here  
There is no better loss than to lose myself in you  
In a parachute to glide, I am captive in your sky  
Surrender has somehow become so beautiful_

Take control of the atmosphere  
Take control of the atmosphere  
You can take my world you can fill the air  
Take control, take control

It's such a beautiful surrender  
It's such a beautiful surrender  
It's such a beautiful surrender  
It's such a beautiful surrender

Move me up through the darkest clouds  
Till I've lost in the sun every shadow of doubt  
There is no better find than to find myself with you  
In a fog you are all I see  
I'm inviting you closer with each time I breathe  
Surrender has somehow become so beautiful

Take control of the atmosphere  
Take control of the atmosphere  
There is no reason I should breathe unless you're in the air  
Take control  
Take control


End file.
